Mixing Question Types Within a Question in Perception Quizzes

We had a request to mix fill-in-the-blank type choices with select-a-blank choices within a single question. Questionmark Perception really isn’t set up to do this, so of course I had to see if I could get around it’s limitations. You can add HTML and javascript to a question though, so I thought of this nefarious back-door trick to fool Perception into taking both answers. Unfortunately it still requires accuracy on the part of the user, so perhaps it is not very useful. They must not type spaces, and must type the answer first, then select the units – in order. That’s a lot to ask.

On the other hand, this particular quiz was set up primarily because the users are required to demonstrate absolutely perfect accuracy in this topic, so perhaps it is acceptable in this type of situation. I’ll probably add a javascript that strips spaces, too.

An example question is shown below. The user is instructed to type the calculated answer first, then select the units. The pulldown simply adds the units or whatever you want to the end of the typed answer. The entire thing is judged as a fill-in-the-blank question.

The QML for the question shown is given below. All it is doing is appending the units to the user’s answer, in the correct format.